North America: Southwest United States (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Hartley.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Precise dates are helpful in tracking changes in paleoenvironment and faunal distribution through the Pleistocene. The ages of Paleoindian archaeological sites in the American Southwest with faunal remains are often precise. They have a specific date with a margin of error. This precision allows for the distinction between warm and cold periods. However,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Bellorado.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For over a century archaeologists have marveled at the intricacy and complexity of the twined yucca sandals recovered from dry cave settings and trash deposits in the San Juan River drainage of the northern US Southwest. Since pioneering work by Alfred Kidder in the 1920s, scholars have recognized that twined sandals represent a pinnacle of ancestral Pueblo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jerry Lyon. Barbara Montgomery. Jeffrey Jones.

The Dairy site is a long-lived prehistoric locality situated at the juncture of the Tortolita Mountains piedmont and the Santa Cruz River floodplain north of Tucson, Arizona. Although the site has yielded important evidence of early Hohokam settlement and cultural developments, the sporadic nature of investigations, the lack of data from early fieldwork, and the destruction of significant portions of the site by the original Shamrock Dairy operation provide substantial challenges to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jean Pike. Deborah Leishman.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our collaborative practice operates at the intersection of architecture, archaeology, and Bayesian statistics to formulate a new methodology for the analysis of precontact architecture. Our methodology expands the quantity and the scope of indicators previously considered in order to provide deeper insight into possible ideational, functional, cultural, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alison Damick.

Archaeology has engaged with ecology in various ways over the years. Recently, post-humanist thinking has gained popularity as an approach, urging us to think about human and non-humans relationally, as having contingent qualities that vary in relation to their interaction over time. Simultaneously, we see increasing attempts to think with indigenous philosophies and descendent communities about what the environment is and does. However, there remains a disconnect between approaches that seek to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Vallejos.

This is an abstract from the "Cabinets of Curiosities: Collections and Conservation in Archaeological Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The transition between the Paleoindian (13,000–8000) and Archaic (8000–1000) periods continues to elude North American archaeologists. It is inferred from archaeological evidence that human populations were nomadic hunter-gatherers during both periods. The creation of storage pits, however, provides...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Abbott. Caitlin Wichlacz. J. Scott Wood.

Various conflicting ideas pervade debate about how 13th century occupation was organized in the upland zone of central Arizona, which overlooks the Phoenix Basin to the south. Some researchers characterize the upland settlements as subservient and peripheral to the densely packed irrigation-based Hohokam communities along the Salt River. Others, instead, describe the upland populations as independent communities with rich histories of their own. Still others speculate about the extent to which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Harding Polk.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A grant was secured from the New Mexico Archaeological Council to conduct dendrochronological studies of a number of structures near the village of San Fidel, New Mexico. Dendrochronological samples were obtained from a breeched and abandoned reservoir dam, a partially standing abandoned adobe residence, and an occupied adobe residence. Cut dates were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tanya Chiykowski-Rathke.

How sherds ultimately enter the archaeological record reflect the roles and beliefs regarding the discard, reuse and repurposing of pottery across the Southwest US and Northwest Mexico. This paper examines the deposition of whole vessels and ceramic sherds from Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, Mexico. It compares two contexts: the debris of domestic spaces, and the careful internment of vessels as part of mortuary ritual. The ceramic deposition practices of Trinchereños (Trincheras Tradition...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisbeth Louderback. Bruce Pavlik. Alfonso del Rio. John Bamberg.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The process of domestication is essential for producing nutritious foods that can be grown, harvested, stored and eaten. Recent evidence suggests that a novel potato species, known as the Four Corners Potato (Solanum jamesii Torr.) was manipulated by ancient people sometime during the last 12,000 years. The tubers might have been an important food and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Werlein. Joan Coltrain. Jeffrey Ferguson. Virginie Renson. Karen Schollmeyer.

This is an abstract from the "Current Research on Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) Domestication, Husbandry and Management in North America and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Strontium and oxygen analyses of archaeological bone samples are frequently used to map human mobility. In this work, these isotopic signatures are analyzed to investigate archaeofaunal material dating to 750-1280 AD in the Mesa Verde area to determine the origins of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Van Alstyne.

As archaeologists, we are looking for ways to engage the public and help them learn about the past and human diversity. Using photogrammetry, photospheres, and digital 3D modelling, this project creates an immersive experience through Virtual Reality (VR) for the public to learn about the Ancestral Puebloan people. This poster demonstrates an interactive public outreach effort that can be replicated by universities and museums, with limited budgets, to convey their research. It is a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bridget Ambler.

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Collections: Federal Archaeology and "New Discoveries" under NAGPRA" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The northern San Juan region in southwestern Colorado reflects the ancestral homelands for 26 federally-recognized tribes. BLM’s Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is a designated cultural landscape per Presidential Proclamation and contains the highest archaeological site density in North America. ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Werlein. Joan Coltrain. Jeffrey Ferguson. Virginie Renson. Karen Schollmeyer.

The analysis of strontium and oxygen isotopes in archaeological bone is commonly used to trace human mobility and migrations. We are using this isotopic approach to reconstruct changes in human access to large animal resources acquired through trading and hunting in the Mesa Verde area between 750-1280 AD. Current work is focused on determining the isotopic variability of the complex geology surrounding the primary study area. Isotopic analyses have been conducted on non-cultural archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Cooper.

The origin of Tanoan language diversification is inextricably linked to the debate around the origin of the Tewa. While paleodemographic, bioarchaeological, linguistic, and DNA evidence support a thirteenth century Mesa Verde-Northern Rio Grande migration, the lack of clear material culture evidence of this migration is perplexing. Critical to this discussion is the possibility of an earlier, tenth century migration of (presumably) Proto-Tiwa speakers from the Upper San Juan region into the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Radoslaw Palonka. Boleslaw Zych. Vincent MacMillan. Katarzyna Ciomek. Jakub Sliwa.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The sandstone multilevel architecture (including famous cliff dwellings) from the central Mesa Verde region, southwestern Colorado in the US Southwest, together with rock art represents Ancestral Pueblo occupation in the prehispanic times. This poster shows the application of various digital techniques for detailed documentation, visualization, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Gann.

Under the guidance of E. Charles Adams and Richard C. Lange, the Homol’ovi Research Program (HRP) was one of the first archaeological research programs in the southwest culture area to incorporate three-dimensional computer aided drafting (3D CAD) into their archaeological practice. By the adoption of a 3D modeling strategy, the HRP was able to foster concurrent developments in new media technologies to better share archaeological research with the general public. Through the use of 3D modeling...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Fish. Suzanne Fish.

We examine multi-ethnicity as a persistent and integral dimension within an overarching concept of Hohokam as a holistic archaeological tradition centered on O’odham peoples in central and southern Arizona. Internal and external multi-ethnic relationships of many sorts abound in the ethnography, oral history, and ethnohistory of descendant O’odham peoples in former Hohokam territory. Post-contact O’odham sources document the expansive geographic range and the multi-faceted nature of such...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Suzanne Fish. Paul Fish.

This is an abstract from the "WHY PLATFORM MOUNDS? PART 1: MOUND DEVELOPMENT AND CASE STUDIES" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tucson area platform mounds are not architecturally uniform but conform to the broader pattern of rectangular configurations as mound distributions expanded across the Hohokam domain. We believe mound forms incorporate a degree of Hohokam awareness and selectivity with regard to West Mexican modes of the time. We focus on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Wilcox.

This is an abstract from the "Nat’aah Nahane’ Bina’ji O’hoo’ah: Diné Archaeologists & Navajo Archaeology in the 21st Century" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gobernador Polychrome is a Navajo ceramic practice whose development was hastened by participation in the Pueblo Revolt. It represents a visible change in Navajo ceramic technology and a window into their social history. My discussions, in this paper are not aligned with Navajo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chris Caseldine.

This is an abstract from the "WHY PLATFORM MOUNDS? PART 1: MOUND DEVELOPMENT AND CASE STUDIES" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The period between the collapse of the ballcourt system (ca. A.D. 1070) and the formalization of Civano phase platform mounds (ca. A.D. 1300) has long perplexed Hohokam scholars. Before and after this period, members of Hohokam society gathered together at centralized locations to participate in and observe public...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Ballenger.

In 2002 Vance won the role of Executive Director for the Argonaut Archaeological Research Fund (AARF) at the University of Arizona. The program provided immediate funding for a number of graduate students working on the archaeology and Quaternary geology of the Desert Southwest. A renewed investigation of the upper San Pedro Basin was among those projects. Vance endured every possible graduate student misstep, some of which are reviewed here, to assemble new information about long-term and hotly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Radoslaw Palonka.

Thirteenth century A.D. in the central Mesa Verde region was a time of socio-cultural transformations, climatic changes, and increasing conflicts and violence that took place shortly before the final depopulation of the region. Since 2011 the Sand Canyon-Castle Rock Community Archaeological Project is being conducted and it focuses on the analysis and reconstruction of the settlement and social structure in a community of forty Ancient Pueblo sites dated to the thirteenth century. The project...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Briggs Buchanan. Mark Collard.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The migration of Athapaskan (alternatively, Athabaskan or Na-Dene) groups from the Subarctic regions of northwestern Canada and Alaska to the American Southwest is one of the longest and best documented movements of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. The starkly different environment of the Southwest and the subsequent interactions with Southwest peoples...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Semon.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Chaco Collection at the American Museum of Natural History has more than 1,900 catalogued ceramic objects. Ceramic research in this collection tends to focus on the full-sized vessels, such as cylinder jars, pitchers, corrugated jars, and bowls, while less attention is given to the miniature vessels. In this poster, I present a breakdown of miniature...